Who are the Slavs? - Citations and Sources

[Pelister]

It seems likely that Sklavene developed out of Sklabenoi and that Sklabenoi developed out of slovenski.

Don't you have the word order wrong, and the spelling of these terms all wrong? I think that SoM and Slovak should go back to the original sources in their original Greek, and so should you.

What is 'a Slav'? Its not an ethnic group, its not a nationality, and before the Western Europeans coined the phrase to mean 'language', it wasn't even a language. So what is it? Ask the ancient Thracians and they won't have a clue, because it wasn't coined yet. It means whatever you want it to mean! Thats the magic of it. Slovak and SoM toss the term 'Slav' around like its a salad.

Honestly the semantic drivel has to stop - a bunch of vague semantic resemblances of people, places and events as varied and as unconnected, as distant and as far apart as two things could possibly be, that have no historical or natural association or connection, except within a highly hyperthetical scenario. What this means is that people like SoM, Slovak are making it up as they go! People, places, events, objects all being 'reconfigured' into one overarching 'slav' metanarrative - renamed in effect! What a gross distortion of the actual evidence, and the historical sources! How can anyone associate a ter 'Sklavoi' used to describe a 6th century invader (invader we know nothing about), and know what the author meant by it, and expect an 18th or 19th century historian to 'know' who the original historian was describing, what they spoke, that 'know' that when he used the term 'Sklavoi' he actually meant 'Slav' which has an entirely different meaning? All we have is a semantic resemblance. Its like saying 'Mars' the Roman God, has a historical connection to a chocolate bar of the same name in the 20th century, because the two words are the same and that somehow the chocolate bar must be connected to the ancient Roman God of antiquity. I mean come on. Is this history 101, or has someone forgotten basic scientific rules of inquiry and evidence? I wouldn't buy into the crap being floated around at the moment, because it is highly hyperthetical.

[Sovius]

Sovius, what exactly do you have that all these "postulates" dont ?
On the flip side I can say that all your illusions are based on the Bulgarian and subsequent Russian expanionist desires to have access to the Aegean Sea. Stick with the Slav topic and leave the rest to the experts.

Thanks Bill


Look chipmunk brain. Most people's DNA in the Balkans is upstream from people who continue to live North of the Danube river. Most history books and anthropological textbooks based on interpretative models developed during the 19th Century concerning Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe are based on the outdated ideas of migration and population replacement. Population genetics has nothing to do with taking land away from what can be anthropologically defined as Greater Albania. Whoever conquers Greece next takes on Greece's debt. I think you'll be safe for a few millennia. The postulated 6th Century migration of a people known as the Slavs couldn't have happened. So, we have all these theories, ideas, research and speculation based on something that didn't happen and I ask you, what would Aristotle do? What would a scientist, student or scholar faced with such overwhelming evidence conclude? You speak of me, instead of we.

[Bill77]

Sovius, what exactly do you have that all these "postulates" dont ?

Honesty and common sense backed by historical information (evidence), which is indisputable if one was honest to admit, and not be a lying delusional character.

On the flip side I can say that all your illusions are based on the Bulgarian and subsequent Russian expanionist desires to have access to the Aegean Sea.

Speaking of delusional characters, Can you also hallucinate evidence to this claim? Or was it just a useless claim that has no meaning and only said because there was nothing else to reply (you know...playing with your self).

[Voltron]

I don't see this is a re-classification, because, by definition, in my view, we're discussing a misclassification. The written record would specifically state, in my opinion, that Illyrians no longer spoke an Illyrian language, but a Dacian, Sarmation or Gothic language. They don't, so all these books and PhD papers and every single piece of filth that comes out of the mouth of the Greek government regarding Macedonia's early history is based on a false postulation, an illusion that's still lodged in people's brains for the betterment of Germanic and Russian expansion. Alexander the Great spoke in the tongue of the common people, but he was not a Slav. I don't see any evidence of ethno-genesis that historians like Curta are promoting. It's still retrofitting the past to conform to present day views.

Sovius, what exactly do you have that all these "postulates" dont ?
On the flip side I can say that all your illusions are based on the Bulgarian and subsequent Russian expanionist desires to have access to the Aegean Sea. Stick with the Slav topic and leave the rest to the experts.

[TRAVOLTA]

Great stuff from both of you. I realy enjoy when I read this things.

[Sovius]

Has it been determined which sub-group has the most dialects?

I believe Macedonian leads the way among the southern group and Slovenian, which is the southernmost language spoken throughout the western group, which may be why its mistaken for a southern language, also possesses an incredible number of dialects. Mountains and the isolation they provide seem to foster the opposite effect of urbanization, where languages have the opportunity to become more homogenous due to population proximity and interaction.

When do you think this took place?

It looks like this migration followed the availability of livable land and climate change. Populations carrying the R1a mutation and other haplogroups look like they spent a good amount of time in the Middle East, Anatolia and Southern Europe during the last ice age and then simply moved North in different ways. Those among our ancestors who would eventually become classified as Indo-Iranians expanded East following the areas where their animals could graze and set up communities and established trade routes, eventually winding up in Iran and India. Those who stayed behind and those who remained in between continued to expand northward and westward. The evolution of what would nowadays be classified as an early form of the Baltic languages into what could be thought of as an early form of the Slovenian languages must have occurred as a result of the Neolithic Revolution in my opinion, as this follows the toponyms, not just the events that occurred in the Eastern Roman Empire during the early part of the Middle Ages, and allows for an admixture of the Baltic and Slovenian languages at the far point of Northwest Europe during the Iron Age. So, roads and routes, a quickening in the pace of life and a larger dispersal area brought about by roads and larger communities facilitated a less conservative version of what is now called Baltic and early systems of travel also allowed for a greater reach in terms of change in relation to where these changes originally first took place, along with new words, technologies and ideas. Folks living in more remote locations would have preserved more conservative suffixes and what not longer due to isolation. I don't think we're looking at a uniform spread into any area.

To truly answer this question, forensic climatologists are going to have to refine their understanding of the events that gave people the opportunity to move in the first place.

I don't disagree that other meanings developed (those you suggested make sense), but I think terms such as Sklavenes, Sclavenes, etc are ultimately derived from the self-designation of Slovenski.

It seems likely that Sklavene developed out of Sklabenoi and that Sklabenoi developed out of slovenski. The Sklabenoi were targeted for Slavery during the Roman occupation and, therefore, the association between slave and slovenski remains logical. What people shouldn't loose sight of is the fact that we're still around and that Rome is now largely populated by the descendents of the people they enslaved, not by descendents of the Romans themselves, which tends to occur over the generations when you're outnumbered 5 to 1. They paid a huge price for their ill gotten gains in terms of the Darwinistic struggle.

Depending on the period in question, sometimes 'Slav' can mean a speaker of a Slavic language, other times a resident of a rebel enclave. The confusion is unfortunate, and makes it necessary to provide a logical summary for the purpose of revealing the truth. I guess the only way this can be avoided is to use the original terms (Sloveni, Sklavenes, etc), but sometimes even they overlap, so this can also pose a problem. Each situation needs to be analysed, for example, the Slavs in the Peloponnese may simply have come from the Sklavinia in Macedonia rather than the Sclavenes beyond the Danube.

Defining things before trying to refine our understanding of the past would go a long way and is now more important than ever when attempting to communicate complex ideas or even to refine our understanding of simple events.

This was also the case in most commercial centres prior to Roman expansion. So I suppose the question would be, why didn't Slavic placenames appear earlier?

Or, conversely, why did people in the area favor using intranyms instead of exonyms when recording place names during this period?

Why did Bylazora (belo zora, a place where the dawn is white), a Slovenian place name and an indigenous place name in use during the Afro-Asiatic colonization of the southern Balkan region, appear alongside Astraion, meaning starry in the Greek language, an exonym, during a later period? They were both Paeonian place names. Why would settlers who were supposedly of Dacian descent call Strymon Strumica and not Slav Land? The familiarity of writers with what they were writing about must have been greater than Western Roman chroniclers' knowledge about who they were conquering and the actually names of places that were already in use further off the radar than a place of greater renown like Bylazora.

I don't think it requires a new classification overall

I don't see this is a re-classification, because, by definition, in my view, we're discussing a misclassification. The written record would specifically state, in my opinion, that Illyrians no longer spoke an Illyrian language, but a Dacian, Sarmation or Gothic language. They don't, so all these books and PhD papers and every single piece of filth that comes out of the mouth of the Greek government regarding Macedonia's early history is based on a false postulation, an illusion that's still lodged in people's brains for the betterment of Germanic and Russian expansion. Alexander the Great spoke in the tongue of the common people, but he was not a Slav. I don't see any evidence of ethno-genesis that historians like Curta are promoting. It's still retrofitting the past to conform to present day views.



During the Renaissance Period, people didn't seem to think these economizations towards what could be viewed as more informal forms and any other changes warranted a reclassification away from Illyrian to Slavic. I believe the branch is dependent on the trunk. It’s the root and not the leaf that truly defines what something is or isn't. Suffix use changes much more rapidly or, should I say, rapidiously, than the roots of words. Slavic and Baltic are by no means the same language. I don't think the same could be said of Macedonian and Dacian, not to the point that researchers would have been warranted to put that divider in place.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Still,I can't see how a people of "pagan beliefs",and "far behind other peoples" could simply come out of nowhere,invade vast territories of Europe and Asia and defeat such mighty empires like Byzantine,Hunnic,and even Chinese,and now populate some good 40% of Europe?Just by fighting with stones and wooden sticks?!If they were so retarded how could this happen?Is there something fishy about this or is it just me?

A critical misconception is that most changes took place due to the spread of a 'new' population rather than the more logical spread of a new socio-political order.

The southern language group is regarded by researchers as being far more heterogenous, possessing way more dialectical variation than either the western or eastern branches. Just like genes, homogeneity (lack of broad variation across a given area) indicates that they are both younger than the southern languages.

The common linguistic process where the centre of origin continues to evolve while the periphery remains conservative. Certainly a convincing argument if the southern branch of Slavic languages has more dialectal diversity than both the western and eastern branches. Has it been determined which sub-group has the most dialects?

........it was largely your ancestors to the South who migrated North of the Danube to become my ancestors, as well.

When do you think this took place?

I believe that these two different terms developed in cultural isolation from one another in two very different ways, terms which then came to be erroneously treated as representing the same meanings much later in history.

I don't disagree that other meanings developed (those you suggested make sense), but I think terms such as Sklavenes, Sclavenes, etc are ultimately derived from the self-designation of Slovenski.

If a word does not carry the same meaning between languages then, by definition, they are not the same words, their apparent associations, then, being artificial in nature and grafted into interpretations that do not accurately reflect the past and, therefore, the present.

Depending on the period in question, sometimes 'Slav' can mean a speaker of a Slavic language, other times a resident of a rebel enclave. The confusion is unfortunate, and makes it necessary to provide a logical summary for the purpose of revealing the truth. I guess the only way this can be avoided is to use the original terms (Sloveni, Sklavenes, etc), but sometimes even they overlap, so this can also pose a problem. Each situation needs to be analysed, for example, the Slavs in the Peloponnese may simply have come from the Sklavinia in Macedonia rather than the Sclavenes beyond the Danube.

They wrote in the lingua franca of the Eastern Roman Empire (Greek), but would have used their native language around the house so to speak.

This was also the case in most commercial centres prior to Roman expansion. So I suppose the question would be, why didn't Slavic placenames appear earlier?

I'd be interested in learning a little more about the evidence you're using to base your views on a proposed linguistic transformation in the Balkans that would necessitate a re-classification of the languages spoken in the area if you have the time.

I don't think it requires a new classification overall, only in terms of sub-group classification. My perception on linguistic transition is largely based on comparison of placenames and personal names, before and after the 6th century. Changes probably had more to do with grammar than anything else. To give a specific example, Slavic suffixes such as 'ski' and 'ovo' appear lacking pre-6th century, whereas traditional case endings in Paleo-Balkan languages that conclude with '-s' are no longer present post-6th century (some of them are of course a result of Greek or Latin rendition, yet the same type of case endings are retained in the more conservative Baltic languages). By no means would I claim to have 'figured it all out', and I am open to other suggestions so long as they are supported by a measure of solid information and logic.

[chentovist]

Some information on the ancient Slavs and their warrior tactics;

http://www.ancientmilitary.com/ancient-slavs.htm

Forum dedicated to Slavic matters;

http://www.slavorum.com/

[Onur]

Sovius, do you have an issue of stating simple obvious terminology such as Byzantine Empire, Greek language ? Whats with all this Eastern Roman crap, Hell you even had SOM confused on what you were trying to say.

Voltron, you cannot force anyone to use the term invented by French Montesquieu in 18th century. As Sovious said, there was no such a thing as "Byzantines" when eastern Roman empire was intact and as i proved here in this forum by linking documents, even when the kingdom of Greece has been founded in 1829, the Rums of Istanbul including the patriarch was still calling themselves as Rums aka Romans.

Onur,I didn't mention any Germanic tribes,Goths or Celts,I had only the Slavs in mind.I have watched the Terry Jones' Barbarians documentaries but I was interested in specifically how the hell could "tribes living in forest settlements and were far undeveloped than their other contemporaries" simply overtake half the territories of the contemporary mighty empires if they were indeed THAT primitive.That's all.Any thoughts?

Thats an easy question to answer.

The key element is; these slavic tribes never confronted against Romans (east&west) all by themselves. They were always subjects [or allies] of other ruling elites. First of all, these slavic tribes has migrated to the Balkans, central Europe from today`s northern Ukraine during Avar empire`s reign, 500-800 AD. According to the eastern Roman chronicles, Turkic Avars thought warfare skills to them and they attacked Roman cities together.

If we take account Bulgarian empires, it was same. In the first Bulgarian empire, the ruling elite and the core of the army was the fugitive Bulgar Turks from Volga. In the second Bulgarian empire, ruling elite and the army was Turkic Cumans. Cumans was fugitives again because of ever increasing pressure from Mongols and their Tatar subjects. This is provable by the names of the ruling monarchies like Asens, Shismans.

For Romanians, it was Cumans again in 13-14th century, the monarchy of Basarabs (basaroba)

Magyar/Hungarian tribes also allied with local slavs when they settled in Pannonia.

Probably all these tribes, Slavs, Magyars and Turkic people had not much problem while creating their alliances because already their homelands was close to each other. Magyars in north of Blacksea, Slavs in further north and Turks in the east of them. Already these people was mobile, migrating around for finding fresh grass for their animals. They must have known each other even before all the migrations begun. They probably needed each other too, to be able to confront and defeat ~100.000 men strong Roman armies.

But we are not sure what happened after that stage. Maybe slavs was more populated than other tribes or maybe Romans baptized slavs first and supported them against the ruling pagan turkic elites or simply all the other tribes except slavs assimilated and disappeared among them.


Edit: I forgot to say;
We can guess how powerful was the slavic and turkic coalition in Avar empire from their siege of Constantinople. They failed to capture but they were the very first army who were able to reach to the walls of the city and it was the first ever siege of Constantinople anyway, in 626 AD. They formed an alliance with Persians from east and attacked together.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_%28626%29

[Sovius]

Hm? The Macedonians were comprised of Thracians. Thank you Voltron, truly enlightening. Maybe there's hope for you yet.

And its already been demonstrated long ago that these people were Dacians. Go do a search on this site for Simocatta and Getae or Getai. It's a miracle you are still able to type given your, ah, contortionistically challenged condition.

Got to go

[DraganOfStip]

Onur,I didn't mention any Germanic tribes,Goths or Celts,I had only the Slavs in mind.I have watched the Terry Jones' Barbarians documentaries but I was interested in specifically how the hell could "tribes living in forest settlements and were far undeveloped than their other contemporaries" simply overtake half the territories of the contemporary mighty empires if they were indeed THAT primitive.That's all.Any thoughts?

[Voltron]

Surely, Macedonians would have their real names etched in somewhere. Thracians did.

You're in denial, Its only your figment of imagination that they did not exist. I provided you a few Slavic tribes above as an example.

[Sovius]

Do you know what the etymology of this Macedonian writer means ?

Do you know what his real name was? Look up Voltaire or Mark Twain. I think you'll start to get the picture. Was Spartacus a Thracian name?

Half the tribes you mentioned are not considered Slavs.

This is because "Slavs" have never existed as anything but a figment of revisionist historians' imaginations and in the minds those who were forced to read their textbooks in school. Can you say Dacian? Do you refer to Modern Germans as "Krauts"? Do you lack such a complete disrespect for other people that you cannot even call them by the names they were truly known by?

[Voltron]

Do you know what the etymology of this Macedonian writer means ?

Correction, all the names you mentioned arent Slavs. Draguvites, Berzites, Ezerites, Mellingoi are Slav tribes.

[Sovius]

By Slavonic do you mean Gothic (Getic, Geats), Hunnic, Dacian, Sarmatian, Vandalic (Vindelician) or Scythian? Oddly enough, I just presented evidence left behind by a Macedonian writer who was alive and kicking during this "back then" Period of which you speak, an author who regarded himself as a Macedonian and who was regarded by others during his time as a Macedonian. Clearly, it will take one of the greatest feats in the history of engineering to get your head out of that place that it never should've gotten stuck in to begin with.

Quite fascinating, really, but in a deranged, uber-psychotic sort of way.